John Eaves
| Place of birth = Phoenix, Arizona, USA | Awards for Trek = 2 ADG Excellence in Production Design Award nominations | Roles = Model Maker; Production Illustrator; ''Star Trek'' author, Publication Artist | image2 = John Eaves working on Insurrection with the Sovereign class study model in front of him.jpg | imagecap2 = Eaves in his office at work on Insurrection }} "JOHN EAVES (...) is an absolute nut that I adore" – Doug Drexler, Senior Production Illustrator, co-worker and personal friend, on Eaves, 5 November 2015. http://www.thebronzereview.com/#!st-doug-drexler-2/c11k4 John Michael Eaves is a concept illustrator and designer who worked as production illustrator on the television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine for its last four seasons and on Star Trek: Enterprise in its entirety, as well as on no less than eight . Star Trek In the early stages of his production design career, which happened to be Star Trek, John Eaves preferred to have physical models at hand to get a feel of the three-dimensionality of his starship designs in particular, especially when they were to have a significant visual impact. As, obviously, no commercial models were available to this end at the time, Eaves had to construct them for himself, building upon his previous experience as studio model maker. Especially noteworthy were the study models he built for (the ''Enterprise''-B study model) and (the ''Enterprise''-E, and ''T'Plana-Hath'' study models). As confidence in his own prowess as a production designer grew, Eaves eventually dispensed with the practice. Most of his study models turned up, and were sold, later at various Star Trek auctions. By starting work in 2015 on the 13th movie installment, , Eaves became tied with Michael Okuda for the record of having worked on most Star Trek movie productions, held by an officially credited studio production staffer (strictly speaking, Gene Roddenberry holds the record as he is credited on every movie, though these are honorary credits only, save for on which he had actually worked). However, by counting his known, but uncredited work on , Eaves has actually surpassed the record of his friend and former co-worker Okuda. Earliest Star Trek work John Eaves' very first production involvement with Star Trek, was working at Gregory Jein, Inc. as an uncredited studio model maker for The Final Frontier. Still a relatively newcomer at that time, Eaves later expressed gratitude for Gregory Jein, who took Eaves under his wings, during the production of The Final Frontier, "As an introduction to ''Star Trek I had the best time working for Greg and in all honesty I wasn't ready for all the responsibilities he gave me and in many ways I feel I didn't have the knowledge to perform as good as I wanted to!!!!! but he continued to nurture me on and I am so grateful for that opportunity." Contracted five years later for ''Generations, and under the supervision of Production Designer Herman Zimmerman, he was first and foremost tasked with modifying the model, turning it into the . ''Deep Space Nine'' and First Contact John Eaves, a bit to his own surprise, became a permanent staff member the following year as production illustrator for Deep Space Nine, as a vacancy opened up when illustrator Jim Martin left the franchise at the start of the fourth season. Apparently, he had made an impression on Zimmerman, as it was he who personally invited Eaves to work on the production. (Star Trek: The Next Generation Sketchbook: The Movies, p. 79) For the remainder of that series, Eaves designed numerous set pieces, props and starships, the first one being the ''Groumall'' ( , p. 22), as well as the later Breen warship. During his tenure on Deep Space Nine Eaves was invited to contribute to the movie , for which his most notable contribution was the design of the new . ''Insurrection'', Enterprise and Nemesis Following his tenure at Deep Space Nine, John Eaves was not asked to join the Star Trek: Voyager production team, simply because there was no position available at the time. Nevertheless Eaves was in that period of time contracted for an illustrator position on , for which he most conspicuously designed the various Son'a ships. Still, not being hired on Voyager turned out to be something of a blessing in disguise, as former colleague Geoffrey Mandel has intimated, "When they started ''Enterprise, they made a conscious decision to bring in some new blood, and not just round up the usual suspects; but in practice, it meant that fans like Rick Sternbach, Tim Earls and myself weren’t asked back. However, a number of fans who had worked on DS9 and had been taking an extended leave of absence came back when Enterprise started, so the total number of Star Trek fans stayed about the same." xCW9imJ8mIzUQ}} Working on ''Star Trek: Enterprise as a regular production illustrator, supervised by close personal friend Doug Drexler (whom he had met and befriended during his Deep Space Nine days, and who, like him, had taken "an extended leave of absence"), Eaves continued designing starships, space stations and more. His first assignment had actually been to start with the deign of the new "hero ship", , for the new series, before that task reverted to Drexler. (see: NX class model) In that period of time Eaves also contributed to the last Star Trek film set in the prime universe, , for which the designs of the Scimitar and the Romulan warbird were his most notable contributions. Surviving the transition from prime to alternate universe Excepting the Industrial Light & Magic staffers, who had previously worked on the Star Trek franchise and were still in the employment of the company at the time, John Eaves became the only studio production staff veteran who had worked regularly on the prime universe Star Trek productions, to be officially hired and credited for J.J. Abrams' 2009, re-imagined, alternate universe as conceptual illustrator (though it is known that former colleague Mandel had also done some short-lived, uncredited, pre-production design work for the 2009 outing). While Abrams steered clear from hiring any former Star Trek staffers in order to be as unencumbered as possible for his vision on the franchise, he was aware that some consistency needed to be observed, or as Production Designer Scott Chambliss has put it, "I brought John in because he knew the story and lore, what should and shouldn't be done. The ships in the Starfleet Armada to go to were influenced by John's knowledge." (Star Trek - The Art of the Film, p. 58) The design work he has done on that movie, has earned him an ADG Excellence in Production Design Award nomination in the following year. Eaves' designs for this movie included the hovercruiser, medical and military shuttles, and the new ''Enterprise'' s escape pods. In 2011, Eaves worked in the same capacity on the twelfth installment of the movie series, eventually titled , designing props for the Nibirans as well as revamping various Starfleet gadgets and Klingon weapons http://www.johneavesart.com/apps/photos/album?albumid=15179552, earning him an additional ADG Award nomination. Most recently, Eaves has been working as concept designer for the props along with property master Andrew M. Siegel on the sequel Star Trek Beyond. Other official Star Trek work Working with the Official Star Trek Fan Club and their magazine, John Eaves designed and mastered a replica of the Captain's yacht Cousteau. Eaves also designed "sculptural" three-dimensional starship plates for The Hamilton Collection. Much of his design work on Generations and First Contact was published in the 1998 reference book Star Trek: The Next Generation Sketchbook: The Movies, which Eaves co-authored. Eaves' involvement in Star Trek continues in his role as a design consultant for Perpetual Entertainment in developing the online game Star Trek Online. http://www.startrek-online.net/messageboard/showthread.php?t=5240 http://www.startrek-online.net/index.php?page=stocast Aside from this, Eaves has also worked on Star Trek The Exhibition. http://trekmovie.com/2007/10/17/trekmoviecom-update-on-latest-shatner-enterprise-and-casting-rumors/ "John Eaves' Sketchbook" is a special feature series on the ''Star Trek: Deep Space Nine'' DVDs, in which the artist delves into his design work for that series. Unofficial Star Trek work Outside the official franchise, John Eaves has additionally worked as Art Director on Tim Russ' fan film project Star Trek: Renegades along with Walter Koenig, Manu Intiraymi, Gary Graham, Courtney Peldon, Robert Picardo, Rico E. Anderson, Clint Carmichael, Richard Herd, Jason Matthew Smith, John Carrigan, and Ryan T. Husk. Currently in pre-production is the fan film project Star Trek: Axanar (2015) on which he works as concept artist. The project will also feature Tony Todd, Kate Vernon, Garrett Wang, J.G. Hertzler, Gary Graham, David Gerrold, Alec Peters, Ryan T. Husk, Scott Trimble, Daren Dochterman, and April Marie Eden. Inspired by the similarly conceived -blog of his friend Doug Drexler, Eaves also started his likewise successful blog, , on 16 March 2009. He stated on that occasion, "I have to thank the ever and all talented master of media and VFX illusionist, Doug Drexler, for encouraging me to get off my fat butt and finally start a fun blog page!!! I have always wanted to have place to share the fun and adventures of those glorious movie and Star Trek days with friends, coworkers and fans of the films and shows..." Like the DrexFiles, Eaves shared on his blog a considerable amount of his Star Trek design art, as well as his thoughts behind them, with the Star Trek fan community for four years, though, as of 2013, and while still "live", activity on the blog has ground to a standstill, with Eaves henceforth communicating to the world at large through his Facebook page. ''Star Trek'' starship designs :This list is currently incomplete. Starships designed by John Eaves: * ** ***''Amargosa'' observatory ***refit-''Excelsior''-class ** ***Phoenix ***''Sovereign''-class ***''T'Plana-Hath''-type ** ***''Cousteau'' yacht ***Federation holoship ***Federation mission scoutship ***Ru'afo's flagship ***Son'a battle cruiser ***Son'a collector ***Son'a shuttle * **DS9 Season 4 ***''Groumall''-type **DS9 Season 5 ***Jem'Hadar battle cruiser **DS9 Season 6 ***Jem'Hadar battleship ***Orbital weapon platform **DS9 Season 7 ***Breen warship * **ENT Season 1 *** ***Echo Two ***Inspection pod *** *** ***Shuttlepod (22nd century) ***Suliban cell ship (spherical) **ENT Season 2 *** Career A lifelong fan of the science fiction and fantasy genre (those of the 1980s in particular and including but not limited to Star Trek), and to date a frequent visitor to the genre conventions, movie buff John Eaves started out a model maker, prior to his work on Star Trek, Top Gun (1986) being his very first professional assignment. As to his start in Hollywood Eaves recalled, "'' Grant [McCune] gave me my first job in Hollywood, at the once-great FX house Apogee, in 1985. Not only has Grant been a great teacher and source of encouragement, he's also a good friend. I owe much of all I've achieved in my career to him." (Star Trek: The Next Generation Sketchbook: The Movies, p. 79) Having worked in that capacity for a succession of companies like Apogee, Inc., Grant McCune Design, and Boss Film Corporation, other pre-''Star Trek films he worked on as model maker were, among others Innerspace (1987, featuring Robert Picardo, Dick Miller, Wendy Schaal, William Schallert, Henry Gibson, Kenneth Tobey, Andrea Martin, music by Jerry Goldsmith and cinematography by Andrew Laszlo), Alien³ (1992), Batman Returns (1992, with Vincent Schiavelli, Anna Katarina, Biff Yeager and Felix Silla), Strange Days (1995, with Michael Jace and cinematography by Matthew F. Leonetti), and more recently, post-''Star Trek'', on X-Men: The Last Stand (2006, starring Patrick Stewart, Famke Janssen, and Kelsey Grammer). In the latter half of 1989, Eaves worked for Greg Jein–with whom he struck up an enduring friendship–, and, apart from The Final Frontier, has worked for his company on The Hunt for Red October (1990, with Ron Gress, Alan McFarland, and Bruce MacRae). In 1987 he added graphics to his skills set, and started also working as a graphic artist, first as concept/storyboard artist on the movie Nightflyers (1987), as well as on the later television series seaQuest DSV (1993-1995), subsequently as concept artist/illustrator for the Star Trek franchise and the film Virtuosity (1995, with Louise Fletcher, Danny Goldring and the voice of Frank Welker), After his tenure on Generations, Eaves returned to Grant McCune Design in 1994. He remembered, "Clark [Shaffer, who worked with Eaves on Generations] and I were originally model makers, with a lot of artwork thrown in for fun. Together we designed and built a lot of models for Grant. After Apogee closed, Grant kept the lease on the model shop and called it Grant McCune Design. While there, Clark and I started working together on Batman Forever. Our assignment: to design and build Arkham Asylum, that nasty place where Jim Carrey's "Riddler" is seen at the story's end. "After I worked on Generations, the way I approached drawings and sketches changed. Before, I'd draw a three-quarter view, and when time for model construction came, I'd fill in details as needed. When building the model, I had in my mind all the information that wasn't on paper. Thus, if anyone else had to build a model from one of my sketches, they faced a lot of gray areas, a lot of detail that needed to be addressed. Generations taught me that the more sketches I make (especially plans, even rough one), the better they assist those who had to make models from my drawings. "So when we started working on models for Batman Forever and I had to do the sketches, not only did I do three-quarter drawings for the producer's approval, I did plans too, which I'd never done before. The Arkham model became so large, Clark and I had a whole crew of model makers working with us–and all the plans and drawings wound up being great assets and timesavers." While Eaves has largely maintained his revised stance for the Star Trek features he later worked on, he somewhat reverted to his earlier way of designing for the television franchise, as he wanted to have the modelers at the various visual effects houses to have their own creative input in order to finish up on his designs. On at least one occasion, in the case of the Jem'Hadar battle cruiser, that has led to a continuity error. One year later, in 1996, Eaves was invited by Herman Zimmerman to work for Deep Space Nine, to fill the position of Jim Martin, after the latter had left the show, which for Eaves was heart wrenching. He continued, "Illustration has always been my first love, but it was a tough decision, because I also love making models for Grant. After a week of sleepless nights spent trying to decide which path to follow, I said farewell to Grant. And it was back to the ol' drawing board at Paramount..." (Star Trek: The Next Generation Sketchbook: The Movies, p. 79) As graphic and concept/storyboard artist mostly in the role of production illustrator, Eaves has worked after his Star Trek television career on Sky High (2005, with music by Michael Giacchino), Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause (2006, with Michael Dorn), and Evan Almighty (2007), and as illustrator on Ghosts of Mars (2001, with Joanna Cassidy), The Majestic (2001, with David Ogden Stiers and Earl Boen), Flight of the Phoenix (2004), and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011), earning him a second ADG Award nomination the following year. His television credits as concept artist include the series Bones and Raines, the latter of which starred Linda Park. In recent years Eaves has showed an increasing interest in model (the female kind) photography, and an increasing amount of his photoshoots are featured on his blog. His Star Trek roots are evident as his models are often attired in female Starfleet uniforms from Star Trek: The Original Series era. Eaves has currently a listing on the model photographers blog "Model Mayhem". Eaves has concurrently lent his talents to "The Overview Institute", an non-profit organization, founded in 2008 and made up of real world space specialists like astronauts, scientists and authors, dedicated to "research and educate both the space community and the general public on the nature and psycho/social impact of directly experiencing space". http://www.overviewinstitute.org/ As consultant he is member of "The Overview Effect" team, the part of the organization, responsible for visualizing the work of the institute by producing documentaries and the like. In the team he has been joined by former Star Trek alumni Douglas Trumbull and Dan Curry. http://www.starportcafe.com/about-us/our-team Most recent credits as Concept Illustrator and Artist include the fantasy adventure Oz the Great and Powerful (2013, with Bill Cobbs and production design by Robert Stromberg), the sequel Iron Man Three (2013, with William Sadler and Miguel Ferrer and music by Brian Tyler), the comic sequel Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014, with Alan Dale and art direction by Gary Kosko, Steve Christensen, Beat Frutiger, and netting him his fourth ADG Award nomination, shared with his colleagues but still not won), and Brad Bird's science fiction film Tomorrowland (2015, written and produced by Damon Lindelof, produced by Jeffrey Chernov, music by Michael Giacchino, and production design by Scott Chambliss). As if to underscore his allegiance to the science-fiction genre, Eaves became a member of the Board of Advisors of the recently established . Founded in November 2016, the museum is slated to start out as a traveling exhibition tour, before settling down in 2018, at a permanent home in an intended location in North Hollywood. It has reunited Eaves with a slew of former Star Trek colleagues, who not only serve on the advisory board, but on the Board of Directors as well. Star Trek credits * ** – Model Maker (uncredited) ** – Illustrator ** – Illustrator ** – Illustrator ** – Illustrator ** – Conceptual Illustrator ** – Illustrator ** – Concept Designer *''Star Trek: Deep Space Nine'' **DS9 Season 4 - DS9 Season 5 – Illustrator **DS9 Season 5 - DS9 Season 7 – Senior Illustrator *''Star Trek: Enterprise'' – Concept Artist Star Trek '' awards ADG Excellence in Production Design Award Eaves received the following ADG Excellence in Production Design Award nominations as Illustrator in the category Fantasy Film * for , shared with Scott Chambliss, Keith P. Cunningham, Dennis Bradford, Gary Kosko, Curt Beech, Luke Freeborn, Beat Frutiger, Aaron Haye, James Clyne, Ryan Church, Paul Ozzimo, Andrew Reeder, Dawn Brown Manser, Andrea Dopaso, Jeff Frost, C. Scott Baker, Kevin Cross, Scott Herbertson, Joseph Hiura, Billy Hunter, Harry Otto, Anne Porter, Jane Wuu, Clint Schultz, Bruce Smith, and Karen Manthey * for , shared with Scott Chambliss, Ramsey Avery, James Clyne, Lauren Polizzi, Kasra Farahani, Michael E. Goldman, Harry E. Otto, Andrew E.W. Murdock, Jason Baldwin Stewart, Natasha Gerasimova, Steve Christensen, Andrea Dopaso, Nathan Schroeder, Ryan Church, Christopher Ross, Victor Martinez, Steven Messing, Karl Strahlendorf, John Chichester, Tex Kadonaga, Kevin Cross, Andrew Reeder, Anne Porter, Jane Wuu, Richard F. Mays, Allen Coulter, Karl Martin, Scott Schneider, Lorrie Campbell, Easton Smith, Tammy Lee, Tim Croshaw, Clint Schultz, and Karen Manthey Bibliography * ''The Making of Star Trek: First Contact, 1996 – Co-illustrator * Star Trek: The Next Generation Sketchbook: The Movies, 1998 – Co-illustrator/Co-author * The Secrets of Star Trek: Insurrection, 1998 – Co-illustrator * Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion, 2000 – Co-illustrator * Star Trek: Ships of the Line calendars - Co-illustrator ** 2006 - December spread ** 2011 - December spread ** 2012 - August spread ** 2013 - August spread ** 2014 - May spread ** 2015 - March spread Star Trek interviews *''Star Trek'' DVD and Blu-ray special features: ** special feature, "The Art of First Contact" ** special feature, "The Art of Insurrection" ** special feature, "Romulan Design" ** DS9 Season 4 DVD special feature, "Deep Space Nine Sketchbook: John Eaves", interviewed on ** DS9 Season 5 DVD special feature, "Deep Space Nine Sketchbook: John Eaves", interviewed on 3 December 2002 ** DS9 Season 6 DVD special feature, "Deep Space Nine Sketchbook: John Eaves", interviewed on 3 December 2002 ** DS9 Season 7 DVD special feature, "Deep Space Nine Sketchbook: John Eaves", interviewed on 3 December 2002 *Print publications: ** "The Evolution of the USS Enterprise-E", Pamela Roller, , August/September 1997, pp. 52-57 ** "Designing the Cardassian Freighter", , June 1999, pp. 22-25 ** "Star Trek: Insurrection - Concept Art (Part 2)", John Eaves/Larry Nemecek, , July 1999, pp. 20-25 ** "Star Trek: Insurrection - Concept Art (Part 3)", John Eaves/Larry Nemecek, , August 1999, pp. 28-33 ** "Behind the Scenes: Arming Deep Space Nine", John Eaves/Larry Nemecek, , September 2000, pp. 57-61 ** "Designing Borg Ships", John Eaves/Larry Nemecek, , March 2001, pp. 50-58 External links * JohnEavesArt.com - official site * * * - official blog * * John Eaves at ModelMayhem.com de:John Eaves es:John Eaves Category:Art department Category:Star Trek reference authors Category:Star Trek calendar artists Category:ADG Excellence in Production Design Award nominees